TENNIS ATP Rome – Rafa Nadal fought back from 2-4 down to battle through Andy Murray in a epic three-set thriller with 1-6 6-3 7-5 after two hours and 40 minutes. Nadal will face Grigor Dimitrov who celebrated his 23th birthday with his first ever Master 1000 semifinal. Djokovic and Raonic will square off in the other semifinal. Diego Sampaolo
Interviews, results, order of play, draws of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome
Murray and Nadal have met for the first time since the Japan Open final in 2011 where Murray won after taking the first set with a bagel.
Murray got off to a great start storming to a 5-0 lead in the opening set where he converted on two break opportunities and came close to another bagel against Nadal
He got his first break for 2-0 and backed it up holding serve for 3-0 and got a second break. He saved all the three break points he faced. Nadal held serve in the sixth game to avoid the bagel but Murray closed out the first set in the next game after 37 minutes. In the first set Murray won 30 points to 16. Murray played a perfect first set on serve in which he won 80 percent of his first serve points.
Nadal fought back fending off a break point in the opening game of the second set and earned his first break point. He got the break to take a 2-0 lead and held serve for 3-0. Nadal won 16 points to 1 on his last four serves. Nadal closed out the second set to force the match to the third set after 1 hour and 29 minutes.
Nadal and Murray traded breaks in the opening two games of the decisive set. Nadal first broke serve in the opening game but Murray broke straight back to 1-1. Murray saved a break point in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. Nadal recovered to deuce from a triple break point down but Murray got a break in the sixth game to lead 4-2. Nadal broke straight back for 3-4. Murray saved two break points at 4-4 to go up 5-4.
Nadal held serve to love and got the crucial break to love for 6-5 in the 11th game with his first drop-shot of the match and won 12 of the last 13 points to close out the thrilling match after an epic battle. He had to fight hard to win his previous matches in three sets against Giles Simon and Mikhail Youzhny.
Nadal won the fourth of the 11 matches in which he had to recover from a 1-6 deficit in the first set.
For the first time since Rome 2005 Nadal has won three consecutive matches in the third set on clay in the same tournament.
Murray did not match the semifinal reached in 2011, his best result on the Rome clay so far but he played one of his best matches on clay showing encouraging form 10 days before the start of the Roland Garros.
